Alpheraky, Sergei Nikolaevich (1850-1918)

The outstanding Russian lepidopterist Sergei Nikolaevich Alpheraky, a Honorary Member of the RES, was a contemporary of N. M. Romanoff. Having entered the Moscow University in 1867, he abandoned it in 1869, for his desire to study Lepidoptera met no support with his supervisor, Professor A. P. Bogdanov. In 1871, Alpheraky moved to Dresden, where he worked under the supervision of the famous O. Staudinger, learning the methods of lepidopterological studies.

Coming back to Russia in 1873, S. N. Alpheraky started his own lepidopterological carrier. Very often he spent summer months in Taganrog, Rostov-on-Don region. The results of his explorations there as well as in the northern Caucasus were his first two publications, one concerning the Lepidoptera of the environs of Taganrog (1876), and the other of the North Caucasus (1877). After that he focused increasingly on the fauna of the endless areas of Central Asia. Alpheraky (1891) wrote: 'Having made the acquaintance of Colonel N. M. Przewalsky in 1878, I told him about my plans to visit Central Asia. He advised me to start explorations from the Kuldja region and was so kind as to draw a route for me which was a part of his route when he was travelling via Kuldja to Lobnor.' Speaking of the reasons for this trip, in his work entitled 'Lepidopteres du district de Kouldja et des montagnes environnantes,' published in the 'Horae Soc. ent. ross.' in 1881, Alpheraky wrote: 'The possibility of a transfer of the Kuldja region territory [then part of the Russian Empire - the authors' comment] to China, which was discussed already then, made me choose exactly that region as a priority area for explorations. My choice turned out to be lucky, for today it has already been decided that Kuldja is to be given to China and, as a result, this region will undoubtedly be closed for any kind of research for a long time. At the same time, this area offered a vast room for new discoveries, and so I did not want to postpone the explorations for a long time.'

On 16 January 1879, Alpheraky together with his friend S. Skaramang, who shared the expenses of the expedition, his preparator P. Mistchenko and hunter N. Kurduk started from St. Petersburg. The travelers went to Orenburg by train, and from there they moved in a sledge along the Bashkhir Route via Troitsk, Omsk, Semipalatinsk, often facing severe frosts. On 8 February 1879, the expedition reached Serghiopol (Ayaguz) at the border of the Turkestan region and, on 17 February, it arrived at Kuldja, now in western China, having spent 32 days to get there from St. Petersburg.

In Kuldja, Alpheraky got acquainted with the famous traveler A. Regel. Together they visited the chemist A. B. Golike, who had earlier collected Lepidoptera for N. G. Ershov in different parts of Turkestan. There Alpheraky specified the places for collecting and made a number of test routes along the Ili River. On 4 March, the team left Kuldja and went to the west along the Ili Valley, having reached Horgos, explored the environs of Lake Sairan-Nor and the Talkin Canyon.

On 26 April, they returned to Kuldja to prepare the main expedition. Then they were joined by hunter Yakovlev, an interpreter and several guides.

At last, on 10 May 1879, the caravan started, consisting of 10 camels and 11 horses with a luggage of 'about 110 pounds' (1,800 kg). During several months, Alpheraky explored a number of regions of the eastern Tian-Shan, moving to the east toward the Sharbugchi Canyon, the valleys of the Tekes and Kunges, Sharhodzi linn. Finally, by the end of August, they reached the destination: Plateau Yulduz. On 5 September, the expedition got back to Kuldja and then to St. Petersburg.

Thus, Alpheraky managed to explore a larger portion of the eastern Tian-Shan territory, often being the first European visitor ever. There he discovered 112 species of Rhopalocera, among which many were new species and forms: Colias ershoffii, Colias staudingeri, Coenonympha mongolica, Erebia kalmuka, Erebia sibo, and many others. The collection of vertebrates was donated to the Imperial Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg, but all the Lepidoptera remained in Alpheraky's hand. Altogether, there were about 12,000 specimens of Lepidoptera, the treatment of which took Alpheraky several years. The results of the studies were published in the Horae Societatis Entomologicae Rossicae in 1881-1883 and covered various butterfly and moth families.

Duplicates of many butterflies collected by that expedition, including the syntypes of new taxa described by Alpheraky, were delivered by him to Staudinger. He retained the rest, and later some part was transferred to the Zoological Museum of the Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg.

Alpheraky was eager to repeat his journey, but the establishment of a fixed border with China along the Horgos River made it too difficult for a Russian naturalist to get to western China. So he had to postpone the exploration of the eastern Tian-Shan for a long time.

In 1886-1888, Alpheraky treated the lepidopterological material of the Tibetan expedition of N. M. Przewalsky (1884-1885), kept in the St. Petersburg Museum. The results of that substantial work were published in the first volume of the 'Memoires sur les Lepidopteres,' in 1889.

After that, Alpheraky started determining the Lepidoptera taken by the expeditions of G. N. Potanin to China and Mongolia, also kept in the St. Petersburg Museum. The results were presented by Alpheraky in the sixth volume of the 'Memoires sur les Lepidopteres,' in 1892. In the ninth volume of the same edition, issued in 1897, Alpheraky published two articles on Lepidoptera of the Amur region and Korea, as well as of Kamchatka, based on material collected by O. Herz.